Misunderstanding
by rinny08
Summary: It wasn't that Damon didn't love Jeremy, because he did.  More fiercely and honestly and protectively than he had ever loved anyone.  Very fluffy Trust-verse oneshot!


_**A/N: Totally shameless Trust-verse fluff. Sometimes I just can't help myself. ;) This is not remotely holiday-themed, but I wish all of you very happy holidays this year! **_

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><p>The problem with road trips was that there would inevitably be an accident or an event or a major city that caused traffic to back up, or in the case of the East River Mountain Tunnel between West Virginia and Virginia, to come to an absolute standstill.<p>

Damon didn't even _want_ to be driving back to Mystic Falls from Boston anyway, considering the original deal was one holiday per year plus Hank's birthday. And while Stefan might (eventually) forgive Damon if he missed the wedding, Damon sincerely doubted Elena would ever forgive Jeremy, or that Jeremy would ever forgive himself, for that matter, so they had little choice except to head to Mystic Falls in October. (Damon wondered idly if they stayed two weeks and were in town for Halloween if that counted as their holiday. Probably not.)

They were stopped close enough that they could see the mouth of the tunnel and in the rear-view mirror. Damon could see cars backed up at least a mile, maybe farther. They'd been sitting for ten minutes when Jeremy leaned towards the radio, tuning it from a classic rock station to the traffic station on the AM band. A crackly voice announced that the hold up was caused by an accident twenty miles south, near the mouth of the Big Walker Mountain Tunnel.

Damon sighed heavily and twisted the key in the ignition, turning the car off to conserve gas because there was no way they were going anywhere for at least an hour.

"Well, this sucks." Jeremy sighed. "We're not even two hours from home."

"We didn't even _want_ to go home." Damon frowned.

"Careful what we wish for, I guess." Jeremy shrugged. He pulled out his phone and sent a text to Jenna, letting her know they were held up in traffic.

"I'm bored." Damon pouted and Jeremy fought to keep the grin off his face. "Entertain me," the other vampire demanded.

Jeremy grinned before flipping open the glove compartment and withdrawing a deck of cards.

"Where did those come from?" Damon asked. He couldn't remember the last time he'd even _owned_ cards, considering he'd had no one to play with until relatively recently, let alone kept a deck in his car.

"I tossed them in here before we left Mystic Falls," Jeremy explained, pulling the brand new cards out of the box and starting to shuffle them. "I figured something like this was probably going to happen at some point."

"Were you a Boy Scout?" Damon teased. "You know, be prepared."

"No. You knew that motto pretty quick though. Sure _you_ weren't one?"

"After my time, babe." Damon smirked.

Jeremy grinned back. "What do you want to play? Fifty-two pick up, maybe?"

"Nice try. I've been around long enough to know how _that_ game works, and if you throw cards all over my car, you're going to be the one to pick them up."

"Aw, Day, I thought you said it was _our_ car."

Damon laughed. "Think what you like."

"All right, I don't really know too many two-player games. Elena only liked War and my favourite was Spit."

Damon was familiar with both games, although couldn't actually remember where he learned either. Stefan, maybe.

"Let's play War," Damon suggested and Jeremy turned towards Damon on the bench seat. He dealt the cards between them quickly.

"You know the rules?" Jeremy confirmed.

"Of course." Damon rolled his eyes.

There was absolutely no skill involved in War and it was the longest fucking game ever, Damon decided after Jeremy finally won. It made Jeremy's seated victory dance especially ridiculous, considering the game was all luck.

When he complained about this, Jeremy grinned. "All right, let's play Spit then. Do you think it will be complex enough for you?"

"Oh, shut up." Damon frowned. He'd never been very good at losing. "Let me shuffle this time. I think you cheated during War."

Jeremy rolled his eyes, but handed the deck to Damon anyway. He shuffled quickly, before dealing and setting up for Spit.

When Damon played this game with Stefan (because he was now almost certain it was Stefan who'd taught him the game) they played in total silence, just concentrating on the cards. Jeremy, on the other hand, muttered to himself.

"Eight, nine, eight…damn. Ooh, seven! Six, five, four, five, four, three!"

Much to Damon's chagrin, the muttering seemed to _help_ the other vampire, rather than distract him. He won several hands, his spit pile dwindling while Damon quickly collected most of the deck.

When Jeremy ran out of cards, Damon ground out, "Again."

Jeremy only laughed and shrugged, settling back in his seat while Damon dealt for a second time. It took all of six minutes for Jeremy to win the second game, and eight and a half for him to win the third.

"Are you some kind of secret card sharp?" Damon snapped after Jeremy won his fifth consecutive game. Traffic remained at a standstill, and Damon wasn't sure which was the lesser of the two evils: sitting and doing nothing while they waited for traffic to start moving, or having his ass handed to him five more times.

"Aw, do you want me to let you win a few hands, baby?" Jeremy asked mockingly, blatantly calling Damon out for being a sore loser.

"Oh, don't patronise me." Damon scowled. "I don't want to play anymore anyway."

Damon felt guilty when Jeremy flinched and gathered up the cards, stowing them away in the glove compartment. Almost as if on cue, Damon saw cars about fifty yards ahead start moving forward, and he turned the key to start the Camaro's engine. It rumbled to life and Jeremy re-buckled his seatbelt, more out of habit than necessity. They crawled slowly towards the tunnel, and Damon couldn't help thinking that not moving was actually better than going less than five miles an hour.

Jeremy didn't say anything until they reached the other side of the tunnel in Virginia and traffic began to speed up.

"You know for somebody who sucks at cards as much as you do, you're a terrible loser." There was an edge to Jeremy's voice, and Damon did his best to squash the guilt he was still feeling.

"We just weren't playing my games. I'm _excellent_ at strip poker."

"No you're not." Jeremy insisted. "You're always naked first."

"Exactly." Damon smirked. "I don't know what part of _that_ could be considered losing."

Jeremy opened his mouth like he was going to argue, before shutting it abruptly.

"See? I'm right." Damon grinned.

"If deliberately losing strip poker is the best you can do, I don't think you can consider yourself good by any stretch of the imagination."

"Babe, you knowI'm _very_ good."

Jeremy snorted. "Not at cards."

Damon shrugged. "They're stupid games anyway."

"Whatever, Damon." Jeremy said, his voice still tinged with annoyance.

Damon got off the highway, winding his way through back roads towards Mystic Falls while Jeremy slouched silently in his seat.

Damon didn't do it intentionally, but it was almost _too_ easy to hurt Jeremy. The other vampire was open and trusting and Damon was discovering it was rather difficult to break his habit of thinly-veiled viciousness. It wasn't that Damon didn't love Jeremy, because he did. More fiercely and honestly and protectively than he had ever loved anyone. It was just that sometimes he did an excellent job of fucking up. Jeremy deserved a lot better than Damon, who after seven years was still getting the hang of this relationship thing. Damon appreciated Jeremy's patience, even if he didn't do the greatest job of showing it sometimes.

They were crawling down Mystic Falls' Main Street before Damon worked up the nerve to fumble through an apology.

"Look, babe. I'm…sorry. About before."

Jeremy looked over at Damon for the first time since their brief argument. "I know. You've been wallowing since we got off the highway."

"I wasn't wallowing. I was thinking. About how I'm a bad boyfriend."

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "Self-pity doesn't look good on you, Damon."

"Don't interrupt."

"I really don't want to join the pity party."

"Shut up and just listen. Please." Damon said, doing his best to ignore the sudden flutter of nerves building in his stomach. This wasn't _exactly_ how he'd planned on doing this. "I'm thinking maybe the problem is that I'm not a very good boyfriend. Maybe we need a change."

Jeremy suddenly looked worried, and Damon had feeling he might be going about this the wrong way, but it was too late now to backtrack.

"What are you talking about?" Jeremy said, frowning now. "It was just a stupid argument, Damon, it didn't _mean_ anything. Nothing has to change."

"Yes, it does. Will you just _listen_?"

"I can't believe you're breaking up with me—on the way to Stefan and Elena's _wedding_—over a lousy card game."

"What?" Damon frowned. "Don't be an idiot, Jeremy."

"Jesus Christ, Damon, will you just _say_ whatever it is you're trying to say?"

"Haven't you been paying any attention at all? I'm asking you to marry me."

"Don't be ridiculous," were the first words out of Jeremy's mouth, and Damon had to admit they stung a little. "You can't possibly be asking me that."

"Why not?" Damon demanded indignantly.

"Because you were just going on about how you don't want to be my boyfriend anymore—

Damon wasn't sure why Jeremy wasn't quite grasping the obvious here, so he explained. "Well, I wouldn't be your boyfriend if we got married. I'd be your husband." He resisted the urge to add a 'duh' at the end of that statement. It would be juvenile.

"And you couldn't find a better, less confusing way of asking?"

"What would you have preferred? Something completely unsubtle and clichéd like 'will you marry me?'"

"Well, obviously the subtle route wasn't exactly getting your point across."

"Fine. Jeremy, will you marry me?"

"Yes. See how much easier that was?" Jeremy said a little smugly. It only took a few seconds for the enormity of the situation to dawn on him and he looked at Damon with a slightly shell-shocked expression on his face. "You're sure about this?"

"Of course." Damon said cheerfully. "I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't.

Jeremy grinned. "And nobody thought we'd stay together this long."

"Who said that?" Damon's eyes narrowed dangerously. "They obviously don't know a thing about us."

"No. They don't." Jeremy said, reaching over to lace his fingers through Damon's.

Damon pulled into the driveway of the former Gilbert house and current Saltzman home and parked obnoxiously close to Stefan's Porsche.

"Hey," Jeremy said softly, "C'mere."

Damon slid across the bench seat, awkwardly climbing around the gearshift. Jeremy curled his hand around the back of Damon's neck, pulling him into a hungry kiss. Damon relaxed against the other vampire, his arms sliding around Jeremy's waist.

Damon had just maneuvered himself into Jeremy's lap when Ric called to them from the porch, startling them apart.

"Get a room! Honestly, you'd think _you_ were the ones getting married."

Jeremy grinned up at Damon, before his expression became suspicious. "You aren't trying to upstage Stefan and Elena, are you?"

"Jer, did any of that seem remotely planned to you?" Damon arched an eyebrow at him. " Although, now that you mention it, the timing _is_ excellent." Damon grinned wickedly. "Do you think it's appropriate for me to announce our engagement during my best man toast?"

"Not at all. But I can't wait to see Elena's face when you do."


End file.
